Chapter 203 |
< World War II - Turning Point (3) >
Moscow, in the Red Square, Lenin's Mausoleum
Vladimir Lenin lay as if in a peaceful slumber, his body preserved and uncorrupted.
Lenin's last will, to be buried beside his mother in Leningrad, had been utterly ignored in the face of his political symbolism as a hero of Communism and the father of the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin silently gazed down at him.
At a glance, he looked so perfectly intact that he seemed to be merely alive and sleeping.
Lenin’s wife had been quite a nuisance, squawking in opposition to the preservation, but now that it was done, wasn't it for the best?
He would be remembered forever as a glorious pioneer. As long as the Soviet Union endured, and perhaps even if it fell.
But Stalin’s moment of quiet mourning for his former superior was interrupted.
Stalin slowly rose from his place and turned his head.
Nikolai Bukharin wore a placid expression.
“…Bukharin.”
Hearing Stalin’s call, Bukharin slowly tilted his head.
“You are an impostor, Koba.
Socialism in One Country was my idea.”
Stalin did not reply.
“And what of your pathetic economic policies? How many of the people did your vaunted policy of heavy industrialization drive to their deaths?”
“…But you failed.”
Bukharin’s head tilted further and further.
“I thought of you as a friend, Koba!”
“You opposed my policies.”
At Stalin’s words, Bukharin’s head tilted even more, until his neck finally began to twist with a grotesque snap.
“Koba, why did you need me dead?”
“Socialism in One Country is mine. I have no need for a pioneer who claims to have come before me.”
Bukharin’s head, having twisted beyond its limits, dropped to the floor.
The headless body staggered and then collapsed, beginning to cover the Union’s most sacred sanctuary in blood.
As Stalin looked down with displeasure at the blood soaking his feet, a serpentine whisper reached him.
“Oh, how foolish.
No matter how clever he acted, he could not prevent his own fate.”
Stalin, now feeling a profound fatigue, turned his gaze.
“Yezhov.”
Nikolai Yezhov, the man who had spearheaded the Great Purge on Stalin’s orders, plunging the Soviet Union into terror.
“Ah, beloved Comrade General Secretary! It is I, Yezhov, your loyal servant.”
Stalin turned to him and sucked in a breath.
It was Yezhov’s face, but his body was attached to the torso of a snake.
Yezhov was hissing as he slithered over Bukharin’s blood.
“Comrade, orders, orders! To kill one man who displeased you, dozens of innocents died! Ah, or was it hundreds? Thousands, tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands! Hahahaha!”
Stalin, dripping with cold sweat, tried to back away, but Yezhov swiftly slithered back across the blood-soaked floor and began to circle him.
“Comrade, why did you kill me?”
Yezhov, who had taken countless lives, was ironically purged by his successor, Beria.
On Stalin’s order.
“…You were too dangerous.”
Stalin glared at the slithering Yezhov and replied. Yezhov flicked his tongue.
“Well now, what a regret. I was loyal to you, Comrade.”
Stalin felt as if he might pounce at any moment, but Yezhov only continued to circle, never striking.
“In fact, isn’t it you who is the dangerous one, Comrade? Your endless suspicion, your unstoppable paranoia! Before you, no loyalty is of any use! No friendship is of any use! Hahaha, steel, truly the man of steel!”
“I am Stalin.”
Stalin muttered as if reminding himself, and had to flinch as Yezhov burst into a fit of ear-splitting laughter.
“Hahahaha, man of steel? More like a weakling, a shard of broken glass.”
“W-What did you say…”
“So, where is the Beria you chose after killing me?”
Stalin could not answer.
“Timid Ioseb, suspicious Dzhugashvili! You’re a coward, so you can’t trust anyone!”
Ioseb Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s birth name.
“Shut up! You’re already dead!”
As Stalin roared in fury, Yezhov’s face, which had been hissing as if ready to lunge and tear him apart, fell into the sea of blood.
The headless snake’s body writhed grotesquely.
Both were already dead.
No one could threaten Stalin.
Stalin avoided the two horrific, grotesque corpses, ran to Lenin’s casket, and slammed his fist down.
“I am Lenin’s successor!”
Lenin’s testament had stated that Stalin, under no circumstances, should become the leader of the Soviet Union.
“I won! I am the one who survived!”
There was no one to hear him.
Panting heavily, Stalin raised his head and froze.
The person in the casket was not Lenin.
Leon Trotsky was looking at him, a cold sneer on his face.
“You are not worthy of the name Stalin.”
Ioseb Dzhugashvili screamed and woke up.
---
July 1, 1941
Capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow – The Kremlin Palace
“Hnghaaack!”
Ioseb Dzhugashvili gasped for breath and frantically checked his shoes.
“Comrade General Secretary?”
His shoes were clean.
There was no foul blood anywhere.
The pathologically neat documents and space told him this was his office.
“Huuuk, huuuk…”
His entire body was soaked in a cold, clammy sweat.
“Comrade General Secretary.”
This was his office, and he was alone.
There was no Bukharin, no Yezhov.
They had been eliminated long ago in the Great Purge.
“Comrade General Secretary.
I heard a strange noise, are you all right?”
Dzhugashvili wiped his sweat-drenched face with both hands and shouted at the door.
“It is nothing.
Pay it no mind.”
“Yes, sir!”
The man, Dzhugashvili, residing in the office of Stalin—the authority of the Soviet Union that must never be shaken—was hidden behind a single door.
Dzhugashvili slowly closed his eyes and composed his ragged breathing.
The exhausted old man, Ioseb Dzhugashvili, who had dozed off at his desk from fatigue and had a nightmare, quickly disappeared.
When Joseph Stalin opened his eyes again, he had regained his composure, as if nothing had happened.
A moment later, Stalin mechanically began processing the military supply documents he had been working on before he fell asleep.
However, the news articles lying next to the documents kept drawing his attention, disrupting his work.
[Fall of Kiev, Complete Allied Occupation of Ukraine Only a Matter of Time!]
[Stalin Line Collapses, Minsk Falls!]
The war situation was deteriorating by the day.
The Stalin Line, which hadn't been properly reinforced due to the prolonged war with Poland, had collapsed in vain.
The Allied Forces were surging forward like a tidal wave, and the Soviet Army was being driven back endlessly, defeated in every engagement.
Stalin forcefully erased the thought that he should have accepted the Allied Forces’ peace negotiation proposal.
[Leon Trotsky Dead! A Communist Conspiracy Engulfs America?]
His nemesis, Trotsky, was dead.
He had set the absurd goal of making Communism succeed in America, and in his impatient struggle, had died a senseless death.
For a man once called the greatest intellect of the Soviets, it was an end so foolish one could only laugh.
And yet, Stalin’s mood was foul.
Just then, a knock came at the door.
“Comrade General Secretary, it is Comrade Andropov.”
“…Let him in.”
A young man wearing glasses entered and greeted Stalin.
“Greetings, Comrade General Secretary.”
“Welcome, Comrade Andropov.”
The man, who had shown promise in the Communist Party from a young age, only for that to become an unfavorable factor that led to his being dragged off to the Gulag, was perfectly composed.
Despite his meteoric rise to the head of the NKVD in his late twenties, he always maintained a humble and diligent attitude.
Inwardly, Stalin felt a sense of satisfaction with him.
Even after personally selecting Andropov, who had been distant from the Party's center, to lead the NKVD, Stalin naturally suspected him.
So he had tasked Merkulov, who as Beria’s former loyal servant was living in constant fear of being purged, with monitoring Andropov.
Merkulov, for the sake of his own survival, monitored Andropov thoroughly and reported on him, but Andropov, at least so far, had shown himself to be nothing but faithful to his assigned duties.
Andropov, under Stalin’s gaze, cautiously approached and presented a report.
Stalin watched him intently as he approached, placed the report on his office desk, and stepped back, before reading it.
Stalin slowly narrowed his eyes.
“Their operation is to advance only as far as Belarus and Ukraine?”
“That is correct, Comrade General Secretary.”
Stalin silently lit his pipe.
Andropov waited patiently while the General Secretary slowly exhaled smoke.
"They will occupy only Belarus and Ukraine, then demand an armistice from us and conduct a defensive war."
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary.
It is certain, as it was a direct statement from their Minister of Defense in their Parliament.”
Stalin squeezed his eyes shut.
That damn Dietrich Schacht again.
Even now, the propaganda about fighting a war of resistance to defend the Union against imperialist invaders wasn't working well.
The prospect of what would happen if the Soviet Union became the aggressor was already daunting.
“…Is this also the work of that fellow?”
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary.
It is something prepared by their Ministry of Propaganda.”
What Stalin held up was a leaflet that had been scattered over Ukraine.
[Starvation Under Stalin or Freedom for Ukraine, Choose!]
[Bread, Guns, and Freedom]
Thanks to those damn leaflets, airdropped weapons, and paratroopers inciting uprisings among the local factions, the Soviet Army, routed from Poland, collapsed under the pressure of guerrilla attacks and a two-front assault from the pursuing Allied Forces before they could even reorganize in Ukraine.
Stalin skimmed it, then turned the page of the report and grimaced.
“What is this now?”
The photograph, which appeared to be taken by the NKVD, showed an unfamiliar structure.
“It is a building under construction in Viipuri… presumed to be a rocket launch pad, Comrade General Secretary.”
“A rocket launch pad?”
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary. Germany has even moved rockets, apparently for use there, to Finland, so it is almost certain.”
Just by looking at it, it was impossible to know what kind of weapon it was, but it was clear it would be nothing good for the Soviet Union.
“That too must be the work of their damn Minister of Defense?”
“…That is correct, Comrade General Secretary.”
Stalin just silently puffed on his cigarette.
After a short time, Stalin handed Andropov a report he had compiled.
As Andropov took it with a deferential posture, his face hardened as he read through the report.
As soon as they lost all occupied Polish territory and the Soviet Army began its rout, Stalin had ordered the emergency evacuation of western military-industrial facilities to the Ural Mountains.
However, as if on cue, resistance forces throughout Ukraine began to rise up, causing massive disruptions to the relocation of those facilities.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Army, fighting to buy time, was suffering serious damage while battling the Allied Forces, all while being plagued by all sorts of sabotage and surprise attacks from the Ukrainian Resistance.
The Soviet Army had suffered 2 million losses on Polish soil, and another 1 million losses in Belarus and Ukraine.
Even after receiving 700,000 prisoners of war back and committing them to penal battalions, and hastily conscripting and dispatching an additional 2 million poorly trained men, they had not recovered their military force to its pre-liberation operation levels.
On the other hand, the Allied Forces, bolstered by prisoner exchanges, additional troops joining from the reclaimed Polish territories, and the Free Ukrainian Army, were actually increasing in strength.
Stalin had no choice but to urgently conscript an additional 2.
5 million troops.
But the Soviet Union had already mobilized 14 million men in this war, and had lost 6.
7 million.
The people were being driven to the front lines without proper equipment or training, only to meet their deaths.
No matter how vast the Union, this was a level of damage that could no longer be overlooked.
For now, they might be preoccupied with stopping the Allied Forces, but if the front entered a lull or the war ended, there was no telling what kind of incident these losses would trigger.
The thought momentarily occurred to him that Germany’s damn brat might have calculated that far and planned to advance only to Belarus and Ukraine, but Stalin consciously erased it from his mind.
Having organized his thoughts, Stalin exhaled cigarette smoke while looking at Andropov, who was reading the details with a pale face, and then spoke.
“The relocation of our industrial facilities is only about halfway done, yet our army is being pushed back, losing battle after battle. That man Zhukov is even asking me to give up the defense of the Kola Peninsula and send him the troops.”
They were suffering continuous defeats on the Kola Peninsula as well, with 200,000 losses against the French-Finnish Allied Forces, but the decision to abandon it entirely was difficult for a politician to make.
Stalin looked at Andropov through the thick cigarette smoke and asked.
“I am beginning to have my doubts. What do you think, Comrade?”
The thought that he should, rather, forbid retreat as he wished and order a fight to the death to buy time for the industrial relocation tormented Stalin endlessly.
After a moment of thought, Andropov spoke.
“With all due respect, Comrade General Secretary, the generals currently on the front lines have been filtered time and again and have proven their ability against Germany multiple times.
I earnestly request that you trust them.”
Stalin let out a short laugh and put down his cigarette.
“I see. I understand your opinion well, Comrade.”
Stalin paused for a moment before speaking.
“Fortunately, the Empire of Japan is doing its job properly, so if India is about to fall, it will become difficult for the Allied Forces to focus their full power on us.
…You may go.”
“Yes, sir, Comrade General Secretary.
I shall take my leave.”
Whether his words were a consolation or not, Andropov left with a perfectly unshaken demeanor.
A picture-perfect loyal and competent bureaucrat.
But Stalin was deeply suspicious of what he might be thinking.
Yezhov and Beria had also seemed loyal on the surface.
Georgy Zhukov, perhaps even that man harbored ulterior motives and was not fighting properly—
Stalin stopped that line of thought and shook his head.
No, that’s too much.
It was an excessively paranoid suspicion to harbor at the Soviet Union’s worst moment.
Even if it were true, this was not the time to meddle with internal affairs any further.
Stalin stood up and approached a mirror, and was startled.
He had expected to see the perfect image of the General Secretary of Steel as always, but instead, an old man, steeped in indelible fatigue, stood there.
Stalin stared intently at his reflection in the mirror.
The reason he couldn’t shake his displeasure, even though his nemesis had met a foolish end.
He had died shouting that the Communist Party would last forever.
Whispers were circulating that an idealistic dreamer was perhaps better than Stalin, who had not only unleashed the Great Purge and the Holodomor but had also started a war out of ambition, causing millions of deaths.
Stalin bit his lip.
He should have handled that damn dreamer himself.
If he had, he wouldn't be feeling this displeasure.
That bastard Beria had botched the job.
No, going back even further, the problem was that damn German brat.
He was always the Irregular who shattered the board set by the Soviet Union.
If it weren’t for that damn German brat, none of this would have happened.
Trotsky was better than me? Ha!
Impossible.
Whatever Lenin wrote in his testament, in the end, he was the final victor among the five men mentioned there.
From the moment he became General Secretary, he had been erasing Ioseb Dzhugashvili.
He erased the young man who boisterously enjoyed the company of women and filled that space with the Union.
Let the insignificant criticize him as a dictator consumed by a lust for power; he believed he was a man who had dedicated his entire life to the Union.
As General Secretary, he had always shouldered a tremendous workload, and the large salary he received as the leader of the great Union sat mostly untouched, stuffed in a drawer.
The name Stalin, the Man of Steel, was attached to such a life.
Therefore, the Soviet Union was him, and he was the Soviet Union.
Though it was a crisis, the Soviet Union would never fall, and neither would Stalin.
He was not the insignificant Ioseb Dzhugashvili from Georgia.
He was Stalin.
But the body, drenched in the cold sweat of the weak Dzhugashvili, still gave Stalin a sticky, unpleasant feeling.
Suddenly, anxiety and suspicion sprouted anew.
What if they continued to lose like this? What if he left everything to those foolish generals and washed his hands of it, only to be defeated?
If, if the Soviet Union were to fall, or if he were to cease being Stalin, there would be nothing left of Ioseb Dzhugashvili’s life.
When Stalin came to his senses, the tired old man reflected in the mirror had, at some point, taken on Trotsky’s face.
-You are not worthy of the name Stalin.
Stalin roared and shattered the mirror.